IAB Research Project Description

Bogoslof Patch Dynamics Study

Aerial view, looking south, of Bogoslof Island, which is the summit of a largely submarine stratovolcano located in the Bering Sea 50 km (31 mi) behind the main Aleutian volcanic arc. The island is about 1.5x 0.6 km (1 x 0.4 mi) and, due to energetic wave action and frequent eruptive activity, it has changed shape dramatically since first mapped in the late 1700s. Its most recent eruption, in 1992, produced the conical, rubbly lava dome (150 m [492 ft] high) and offshore spire at bottom center. Photograph by T. Keith, U.S. Geological Survey, May 10, 1994.
Image courtesy of AVO / U.S. Geological Survey.
Credit: Keith/Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S.

Any and all uses of these images must include photographer credit.

The large breeding concentration of sea birds and marine mammals at Bogoslof Island and the Pribilof Islands are undergoing divergent population trajectories. Those on Bogoslof Island have been healthier than those at the Pribilof Islands. Kitaysky’s study is focused on determining why populations of seabirds and fur seals are declining on the Pribilofs and increasing at Bogoslof. He will test the hypothesis that climate-induced changes in the physical environment control forage patch dynamics and alter food availability, which in turn determines opposite trends in productivity and population dynamics of piscivorous top-predators between the oceanic and the continental shelf domains in the south-eastern Bering Sea.